From Obama's Race to Romney's 47 Percent, A Guide To Leaked Videos

By AMY BINGHAM

October 3, 2012

Romney: David McNew/AP Photo; Obama:Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo

In the two weeks since a left-leaning news site posted that discreetly filmed video of Mitt Romney discounting the "47 percent", a barrage of equally grainy and often ancient videos of his rival and his running mate have popped up from bloggers on both sides of the aisle.

From a decade-old clip of President Obama talking about race, to video of vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan discussing the "30 percent," here's a complete guide to the "leaked," "never-before-seen" videos that are coming out of the woodwork this week.

Obama on Race, Katrina and Rev. Wright

Filmed: June 5, 2007

Released: October 2, 2012

Context: Conservative news sites started teasing the five-year old video mid-afternoon Tuesday, the day before the first presidential debate. The 36-minute clip was posted to The Daily Caller, promoted heavily on the Drudge Report and broadcast on Sean Hannity's Fox News show as a "never before seen" video. ABC News and others reported on the speech when Obama first delivered it in 2007.

It shows a speech that then Senator Obama gave to the Hampton University Ministers Conference. In it Obama speaks in a Southern preacher-style accent and refers to his controversial former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright as "a friend and a great leader."

He calls into question the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, saying it "really steams me up" that Louisiana had to pitch in state money for the disaster relief effort while other states, such as New York after the Sept. 11 attacks and Texas after Hurricane Andrew, did not.

Key Quotes:

On Rev. Wright:

"The guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader."

On a baby who was born with a bullet in her arm after her mother was shot during the Los Angeles riots:

"That scar doesn't go away," Obama said. "Not only do we still have the scars of the riots and the quiet riots that happen every day, but in too many places all across the country we haven't even bothered to take the bullet out."

On the federal response to Hurricane Katrina:

"What's happening down in New Orleans? Where is your dollar? Where is your Stafford Act money? Doesn't make sense. Tells me the bullet hasn't been taken out. Tells me that somehow the people down in New Orleans, they don't care about as much."

"This administration was colorblind in its incompetence… All the hurricane did was make bare what we ignore every day," Obama said. "People in Washington, they wake up, they're surprised. There is poverty in our midst. Folks are frustrated. Black people angry."

Paul Ryan on the 30 Percent

While video of the speech has been online for nearly a year, the Huffington Post posted a clip of Paul Ryan saying that 30 percent of Americans "want their welfare state" one day before the first presidential debate this week.

The clip resurfaced amid controversy over another hastily posted video of Romney telling high-dollar donors at a closed door fundraiser that the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax "believe they are victims."

Ryan's comment came six months before Romney's 47 percent remark during a keynote speech at the American Spectator's 2011 Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner last November. American Spectator posted the full 23-minute video on YouTube one week after the event.

Key Quotes:

"The moral tipping point is before too long we could become a society we were never, ever intended to be," Ryan said. "We could become a society where the majority of Americans are takers not makers."

"Today, 70 percent of Americans get more benefits from the federal government in dollar value than they pay back in taxes," Ryan said. "So you could argue that we're already past that tipping point."

"Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream," Ryan continues. "They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want their welfare state. What that tells us is at least half of those people who are currently in that category are there not of their wish or their will."

Obama on Race and Power

Filmed: January 21, 2002

Released: October 3, 2012

Context: After the video of Obama's touching on racial issues in the 2007 speech hit the internet on Tuesday, conservative blogger Morgen Richmond followed it up with video of Obama comparing anti-riot tools like "fire hoses and attack dogs" to "accountants and tax loopholes," both of which, he says, are used to "keep people down."

The comments are part of a 29-minute speech Obama gave at the University of Chicago's 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

Key Quotes:

"I don't know if you've noticed, but rich people are all for nonviolence. Why wouldn't they be? They've got what they want. They want to make sure people don't take their stuff," Obama says.

"The principle of empathy recognizes that there are more subtle forms of violence to which we are answerable," Obama says. "The spirit of empathy condemns not only the use of fire hoses and attack dogs to keep people down but also accountants and tax loopholes to keep people down."

"It's hard to imagine that the powerful in our society would tolerate the burgeoning prison industrial complex if they imagined that the black men and Latino men that are being imprisoned were something like their sons," he says.

Romney on the 47 Percent

An inconspicuously filmed video of Mitt Romney speaking during a private fundraiser in May stirred up widespread controversy after the left-leaning news site Mother Jones posted the full video online in September.

Romney is candid and widely off-message throughout the 30-plus-minute speech. He has been most widely criticized for saying his job is "not to worry" about the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes and are "dependent upon government."

Romney defended his remarks, saying that while they were "not elegantly stated," it is true that President Obama "has his group, I have mine." The Obama campaign swiftly attacked Romney for having "written off half the nation."

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.

"All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.

"That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what."

Obama on People Clinging to Guns and Religion

Speaking to donors at a private San Francisco fundraiser during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Obama infamously said rural Pennsylvanians are "bitter" over perpetually dismal job prospects and thus "cling to guns or religion."

Critics have recently drawn comparisons between this 2008 video and Romney's "47 percent" video, a comparison White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed Wednesday, saying "then Senator Obama never said that he did not worry about or would not worry about 47 percent of the population."

Key Quotes:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."